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Boulder Food Rescue expands quickly, salvages 78,000 pounds of food

Volunteers deliver directly to organizations via bike

By Laura Snider Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
05/28/2012 04:00:00 PM MDT

How to help

Boulder Food Rescue continues to need both stores willing to donate and volunteers willing to pedal heavy loads, as well as monetary contributions to help run the administrative end of the nonprofit organization.

Boulder Food Rescue -- a local nonprofit organization that picks up food destined for the Dumpster and, instead, delivers it to the hungry -- launched in August with just three people.

Less than a year later, the organization has ballooned to include a fleet of 65 pedaling volunteers who pick up food seven days a week from grocery stores and restaurants across the city and bring it via bike directly to 32 organizations that help feed the hungry.

In all, the organization has rescued more than 78,000 pounds of food, most of which is produce, bread or other perishable items. And the organizers say there's still room to grow.

"In Boulder, right now, we're basically just picking up from natural grocers," said Becky Higbee, one of the group's founders. "We haven't even touched the Safeways and the King Soopers."

Those stores, and many others, now donate to local food banks. But those donations tend to be nonperishable items. Boulder Food Rescue targets items such as bruised fruits and blemished vegetables.

The project grew out of a research paper that the founders worked on last year. The paper, now being considered for publication by a scientific journal, sought to answer the question of whether food insecurity in Boulder County could be eliminated by connecting those in need with food that is being thrown away.

The answer -- which spurred Higbee, Hana Dansky and Caleb Phillips into action -- was yes, and, so far, the boots-on-the-ground (or bikes-on-the-road) trial has proven the academic conclusion to be true.

The main barrier that needed to be overcome was the logistics -- that and convincing grocery stores and restaurants that giving food away would not open their companies up to liability.

"We started off with Ideal Market, and they voiced the same concerns that every grocery store, restaurant and bakery has voiced when we first contact them," Higbee said. "Basically, they're afraid of getting sued."

But Boulder Food Rescue staffers explained that businesses are actually protected by the federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996. And once Ideal Market got onboard, other stores followed.

Lucky's Market is one of the stores that now regularly donates food to the project.

"We got involved because we thought it was the right thing to do," said general manager Tim Overlie. "We already take produce that's not saleable to our customers and compost it at Eco-Cycle."

Now, with a little additional sorting, the foods that are still in pretty good shape go into a plastic bin that's picked up nearly every day by a food rescue volunteer, and often, delivered to a nonprofit group in the neighborhood, such as the Emergency Family Assistance Association.

"We thought it was a no-brainer," Overlie said.

The corps of biking volunteers uses trailers that were donated to the organization to haul the food across town. Volunteer Elliott Smith, who picks up food on Saturday mornings at Ideal Market and delivers it to the Food Not Bombs project, said sometimes his pickups are as little 80 pounds -- but sometimes they're as much as 300.

"We have a running joke that you never know your land until you travel it in a bicycle with 300 pounds of food," he said. "That Broadway slope is really long when you're pulling that much."

But the bikes were part of the appeal for Smith, who was also involved in a food rescue project when he lived in Boston.

"I already ride my bike everywhere," he said.

Boulder Food Rescue volunteer Kim Abcouwer picks up food at Whole Foods on Baseline Road that would have been thrown out, and takes it to an organization in need.
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One of the organizations that receives rescued food is Attention Homes, an at-risk youth shelter. Rachel Overton, a direct care counselor at Attention Homes, said the food that's delivered to the shelter -- which is biked over from Google's cafeteria -- provides residents with a good variety of foods that aren't often donated through other means.

"We've gotten some good fish, and some of the kids really like seafood," she said. "And we don't normally get seafood otherwise.

The donations also help make sure there's always a ready meal at the home.

"We really appreciate them," she said. "It's good to have extra meals on hand."

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